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From the Dome Car: Train 12 Track 3 (March-April, 2003)

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  Have you ever had an open house for your layout? I did it a number of times for my previous layout, including for Winnipeg Model Railroad Club layout hops and three national or regional conventions. In this Dome Car, I talk about the benefits of open houses—you have incentive to get things done—and how to do effective crowd control. (Coloured sticks—simple!) It was written with the Maple Leaf NMRA convention in mind; more on that in a future Dome Car.   There's a lot of frenzied activity going on in the Toronto area these days. Throughout the region, model railroaders who are involved with Maple Leaf 2003 are preparing to welcome hundreds of visitors to their layouts. Suddenly, July, 2003 doesn't seem that far away anymore, considering all the projects they want to get done before the tour buses pull up at their homes. There's scenery to finish, track to lay, wiring to complete and a host of other big and small projects that need to be done. It can seem very intimidatin...
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From the Dome Car: Train 12 Track 2 (Jan.-Feb. 2003)

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  Another rant about postal rates! This became a recurring theme for Morgan—in print and in person. And I could see his point; it was tough to run a small business on tight margins and still make a living. And make no mistake; although the magazine and hobby were his passion, it also was a business with bills to pay and invoices to collect.  There’s an old adage that you should never make your hobby your business; you may end up hating the hobby, the thing you once loved. Morgan never did lose his love for model railroading, although he had to dismantle his home layout (The Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway, Manitoba Division) to make room for boxes of magazines, train cards and other magazine-related materials.   Speaking of model railroading, he did mention it in this Dome Car! He promoted the upcoming Maple Leaf NMRA convention in Toronto, slated for summer that year in Toronto. Little did anyone know it would become known as the SARS (Severe Acute Respirat...
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From the Dome Car: Train 12 Track 1 (Oct.- Nov. 2002)

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  With digital cameras constituting 99% of the market today, few people debate digital vs. film photography anymore. But it was a real debate in 2002 when Morgan wrote this Dome Car. Back then, digital photography was in its infancy; he still preferred to receive printed photos for the magazine. (Although he would take high rez digital photos on a mailed CD.) As a railfan, Morgan used a film camera for his photography, taking hundreds, if not thousands, of photos. When he died, his widow bequeathed his print photo collection to me. After having a look through them, I gave the collection to well-known railway photographers and historians Brian Schuff and Mark Penny. I did keep a few of Morgan’s framed prototype photos for keepsakes, though.   I recently read a very interesting article in my local newspaper about the long-term preservation of images. The article, which was reprinted from the Baltimore Sun, compared digital photography verses conventional film.   The art...
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From the Dome Car: Train 11 Track 6 (July-August, 2002)

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  My turn to do the Dome Car again! This time I reflect on building my second—my dream—layout , a two-level model railroad in a 21 by 27-foot room with a storage room for a helix. ( Or “rectix,” as I called it. ) I acknowledged that building a layout of any size can be a challenge for some, but—to borrow the Nike slogan—I encouraged people to “just do it!” I don’t know if building a layout is easier or harder today; after building four layouts since 1988, my layout building days are over. And there are different challenges related to cost and lack of room if you don’t own a house. What do you think?     Getting started in our great hobby is relatively easy, as most people know. It all begins when you buy that first locomotive or piece of rolling stock at the local hobby shop or attend a local train show. But getting that layout started is sometimes a different matter!   For some, the reasons are obvious: They live somewhere that really has no room for one, or...
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From the Dome Car: Train 11 Track 5 (May-June, 2002)

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In this Dome Car, Morgan has to let subscribers know the cost of CRM is going up: It will now cost $6.55 per issue, or about $39 per year. As with other price increases, he really had no choice—the cost of postage, paper and polybags kept rising. It would be a message he would repeat again over the years. To lessen the pain of that announcement, Morgan spoke about the articles people could look forward to. That included one by Marc Simpson about railway operations in northern Manitoba. Seeing his name reminded me that Marc passed away recently —something Morgan would surely have noted in a Dome Car if he himself were alive, and if CRM still was being published. If there is one thing that we as Canadians are really good at, it's complaining about our weather! As I write this from Winnipeg in early May, Calgary is getting 40 centimeters of snow; it's raining cats and dogs in Halifax and there's a forest fire alert in northern Ontario because of dryness.   Will spring ever c...
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From the Dome Car: Train 11 Track 4 (March, 2002)

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  One thing about Morgan that can’t be denied: He was an enthusiastic promoter of the hobby of model railroading! Whenever and however he could, he found ways to help others, especially kids, learn about the hobby—as this Dome Car shows.   That commitment to showing off the hobby included his decision to make collectible train cards, which he freely gave out to kids at shows across the country. Maybe some of you still have some! When I helped clean out his basement following his death, we found boxes and boxes of cards that his widow donated to the local model railroad club to give away at train shows. Morgan would be pleased to know he is still promoting the hobby from beyond the grave!   In February I received a letter from the president of a model railway club in Beaconsfield, Quebec which gives me hope for the future of this wonderful hobby.   In the letter, he told me how delighted he was when we announced the release of the President's Choice train set, a...
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From the Dome Car: Train 11 Track 3 (January 2002)

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  Remember hobby shops? Time was every major city had more than one. Winnipeg, where I live, had five at one time. Now only one remains, having opened up a few years ago. (Thanks, Frog and Diamond!) In this Dome Car, I take a nostalgic journey to some of the hobby shops that meant a lot to me as I got started in the hobby. This includes the time I spent $50 to buy a locomotive and five or six pieces of rolling stock. Talk about days gone by!   The closing of Hall's Hobby House in Dallas, Texas in December got me thinking about how people get started in model railroading.   For me, Hall's was the place where I returned to the hobby, after an absence of ten years.   Like many model railroaders my age (I'm 45), I got my start in the hobby with the proverbial Lionel train set. That was followed by a hand-me-down Triang set, which was followed by HO scale and, finally, by N scale. That N scale layout was sold to help finance my university education when I was 19; it...
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